#文章首发挑战赛#
Text: Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
Editor|Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
[Preface]
The use of glass in our daily life can be said to be very extensive, the most common is on doors and windows, we watch TV and electronic products such as mobile phones, computer screens also have the existence of glass as a raw material.
However, the material of the glass used in different occasions is also different, and the glass used in the LCD screen is the glass "black technology" independently developed by the mainland - ultra-thin electronic touch glass.
The thickness of this glass is only 0.12 mm, which is even thinner than the thickness of A4 paper, and in related experiments, technicians put a 55g steel ball in free fall at a height of 1 meter, and let it smash into the glass, which is also intact.
This impact is equivalent to our daily family car, which crashes into the wall at a speed of 150 kilometers per hour, so when people introduce this glass, they will say that this is a glass that cars can't break.
So what is such a thin and tough glass used for, and what other important uses are there besides electronics?
【Glass "Black Technology"】
In April 2018, Continental's technicians in this field successfully developed a glass with a thickness of 0.12mm, an ultra-thin touch electronic glass, using the glass float molding process manufacturing technology.
Ultra-thin glass has a thickness of between 0.1 and 1.1 mm, and has excellent mechanical, optical, thermal, electrical and chemical resistance, which is a very key material in the electronic equipment manufacturing industry.
At the same time, it is also widely used in the fields of information and communication and national defense science and technology, the thinner the glass, the greater its light transmittance and toughness, the lighter the quality of the corresponding display products, and the more superior the performance.
Compared with ordinary glass, ultra-thin glass will have higher transparency and a smoother surface, such as some of the high-end cosmetic mirrors we use now are made of ultra-thin glass products.
Its structure is the same as that of ordinary glass, which is an amorphous metastable solid material with irregular structure, and the main raw materials for production are inorganic minerals such as quartz sand and boric acid.
A small amount of auxiliary raw materials are added during manufacturing, and the main components are silica and other oxides, and the biggest advantage is light weight and good flexibility.
The sensitivity of ultra-thin glass will also be higher, and some precision instruments must use this material on the surface to achieve the effect pursued in the high-tech era.
Because of the high light transmittance, it is not easy to be polluted, and it is not easy to fade, and it can also prevent cracking under the huge impact force, and it can also be used normally in a high temperature environment.
[Why make ultra-thin glass]
The existence of glass products can be traced back 4,000 years, and in the ruins of the ancient Egyptian civilization as well as the Babylonian civilization, people have found glass-made utensils.
In the 12th century, the process of making glass was successfully copied by the glass craftsmen of Venice, England, and later in the late 20s, Pilkington, a British glass giant, successfully conquered the glass float molding process with tireless efforts.
The breakthrough of float glass technology has also opened the road to the modern glass industry, and the materials produced by this process have great advantages and are widely used in some luxury car manufacturing.
With the development and progress of the times, the characteristics of traditional glass can no longer meet the needs of the new era, and ultra-thin glass has begun to enter people's field of vision, and has gradually become an important material in the electronic equipment manufacturing industry.
Because the optical quality of ultra-thin glass is very strong, whoever has such an advantage may have an overwhelming advantage in related application scenarios.
And in the energy industry, this glass also shows great potential for development, such as the use of ultra-thin glass in photovoltaic products, which can effectively improve its power generation efficiency to a large extent.
The ultra-thin and lightweight mirrors used in the Japan Aerospace Agency's space solar system use ultra-thin glass, which also plays a key role in the smartphone field.
Because ultra-thin glass can improve the unit energy density of the battery to a certain extent, that is to say, when increasing the capacity of the battery, there is no need to increase the corresponding volume, and even the volume of the battery can be reduced.
The pursuit of smart phones is lightweight, so in the process of development, small size and large capacity batteries are particularly important for mobile phones with every inch of land.
After understanding the advantages of this technology, various countries are actively researching and introducing it and opening the road of independent research and development.
[Initially, glass technology was "stuck"]
However, after Britain conquered this process, even its own allies had to pay huge royalties if they wanted to use this process.
In 2013, ultra-thin and even ultra-thin glass below 1.1mm in the mainland domestic market were blank, so we could only import a large number of finished products from abroad.
The disadvantages of relying entirely on imports soon became apparent, with the prices of downstream electronics remaining high, and not only the price was not negotiable, but even what kind of materials to supply had to be decided by others.
In the midst of the faster and faster development of the times, we will only slowly fall behind if we continue to be controlled by others, and we have gradually realized that only by holding technology in our own hands can the development of related fields in the mainland go further.
So in September 2013, Bengbu Glass Industry Design and Research Institute started the technical research and development of ultra-thin electronic touch glass project.
In the beginning, our technicians did not have any experience, and the equipment and raw materials were not advanced and sufficient by others, so we could only try and make mistakes step by step.
【China's independent research and development of ultra-thin glass】
In the process of glass manufacturing, the most painful thing is the repeated operation of the three important links of kiln, tin bath and annealing.
Because the performance of glass is superior, the key is the proportion of raw materials and the chemical changes that occur in the process of melting at high temperatures, and temperature control is extremely important.
Even a temperature difference of only two degrees before and after can have a huge impact on the performance of glass, so it is necessary to pay attention to temperature changes and the melting of raw materials during production.
The key equipment is the high-temperature kiln and tin bath, the glass solution melted in the kiln is poured into the tin bath, and the glass solution can float on it due to the high density of the tin bath.
After that, the glass is thinned with an edge drawing machine, and then enters the annealing kiln for annealing, don't look at it is only three steps, but there are many parameters that need to be adjusted during the period, and one step does not meet the requirements, then the glass on the production line will be all wasted.
Especially in the first step, special attention should be paid to the melting situation in the kiln, in which the melting point of the metal raw material is higher than that of other raw materials.
In this process, it is necessary to observe the production of bubbles at all times, as long as there is an abnormality, it is necessary to adjust it in time, and it is necessary to know that the ultra-thin glass made in the experiment is only 10 cm wide, and in industrial production, it is necessary to achieve a width of 4 m, which is a huge challenge.
In this process, all the staff almost made tens of thousands of parameter adjustments, and the parameters that need to be adjusted are different for different functions, and the whole process is very complicated and the requirements are also very high.
In this way, we gradually realized from scratch, during which the scientific research team in the mainland experienced countless failures, but did not think of giving up.
Finally, in June 2014, Continental's ultra-thin glass technology broke through 0.33 mm, but this was still far from enough for our initial requirements.
In this way, they continued to explore until April 2016, they broke through 0.15 mm, and finally with the unremitting efforts of everyone, finally in 2018, China's self-developed and manufactured ultra-thin glass successfully rolled off the assembly line, and even set a new world record.
From the beginning of exploration in the last century to the moment of success, the mainland has walked for 30 years, and in the intervening 30 years, the mainland's scientific research teams and scientific research personnel have been struggling for decades.
Before 2014, the mainland's domestic electronic information display materials were almost zero sales in the world, but in the following four years, the international market share of Bengbu building materials alone increased to 40%.
Now the mainland's ultra-thin glass has almost occupied the global market, which greatly meets the needs of various industries in the mainland.
【Wide range of applications】
Until now, the development of this field has not stopped, whether it is the mobile phone or computer we use now, ultra-thin glass has been widely used, effectively providing the service life of the equipment.
This material is also used in the backplane material of TV monitors, so the clarity of TVs has been greatly improved, and the optical instruments used in our laboratories are more advanced and advanced.
Even some of the cosmetics and food packaging we use in our daily life are also widely used in ultra-thin glass, which can be said to be integrated into all walks of life in all aspects, greatly promoting the development of all walks of life, and bringing great convenience to people's lives.
The competition in this field is still in full swing, and we also know that there is no end to this cultivation, and running at all times is the norm, and I believe that in the future, we will also usher in greater breakthroughs and achievements.
Links to previous issues
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As the saying goes in the countryside, "the old dog doesn't die at home", why do the earth dogs quietly leave home before they die?
The 20,000 poisonous snakes on Dalian Snake Island are extremely ferocious, and if you put two flat-headed brothers in, what will happen
References:
1. China Building Materials Information Network - "China National Building Materials Group New Material Industry Achieves Outstanding Achievements"
2. Jinyang.com - "China has made "ultra-thin glass", the thickness is comparable to A4 paper!
3. China National Building Materials Group - "0.12mm ultra-thin glass, black technology in glass"